ISBN 978-90-77360-16-3 © CINet 2013 523

FAMILY SMES AND COLLABORATION IN INNOVATION: DOES THE “MANAGERIAL FACTOR”, EXTRANEOUS TO THE FAMILY, MAKE THE

DIFFERENCE?

Valentina Lazzarotti1, Raffaella Manzini1, Giacomo di Foggia1and Luisa Pellegrini2

1 Cattaneo University - LIUC 2 Pisa University

vlazzarotti@liuc.it

ABSTRACT Literature suggests that family firms are characterized by specific values and resources (i.e. risk aversion; family identity and SEW preservation; limited cognitive resources; social capital) and that these values/resources exert a role in shaping family firms’ behaviour also as concerns strategic partnering. However, literature recognizes also that family firms are not all alike and thus these values and resources can assume different connotations also among the family firms. We aim to focus on different types of family firms: family firms stricto sensu for which ownership and management overlap (both hold by family members) and managerial family firms for which ownership and management are disjointed and non-family managers are involved in strategic decision-making. Evidences seem consistent in outlining the profile of the managerial family firms with respect to the family firms stricto sensu: they seem to show an innovation strategy more aggressive, more oriented to technology excellence and to radical innovation. Moved by this strategic aim, they search for a broad set of external sources (even non-traditional partners, as universities), motivated mainly by goals of competence (in particular technological competences) enlargement. More in general, we argue that ownership of the family firm is not relevant, while the “managerial factor” makes the difference in shaping partnering behaviour. Keywords: Open innovation, innovative collaboration, SMEs, family SMEs.

1. INTRODUCTION

It is largely recognized by scholars, belonging to several theoretical perspectives (strategic resource-based perspective: von Hippel, 1986; Katila and Ahuja, 2002; innovation management literature: Chesbrough, 2003; Laursen and Salter, 2006) that cooperative agreements and partnerships are developed to create value and to enhance firm innovativeness. Empirical evidence shows that innovative firms set-up relationships with various types of partners, i.e. suppliers, customers, competitors, universities, etc., making widely shared the concept of collaboration breadth (i.e. number of external sources of knowledge companies collaborate with in innovation activities) and collaboration depth (i.e. intensity of collaboration). However, despite some relevant exceptions (Sofka and Grimpe, 2010; Lichtenthaler et al., 2009; Lazzarotti et al., 2011; Drechsler and Natter, 2012), still little is known about the determinants of breadth and depth. Investigated determinants of collaboration are

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firm-specific (e.g. innovation-strategy approach and goals pursued with collaborations) or environmental/external factors (e.g. technological and market dynamics). For example, high levels of aggressiveness of innovation strategy (with a strong attention to radical innovation) seem to determine a higher propensity towards collaboration; goal of searching for new ideas seems to encourage collaborations with customers, while cost reduction purposes should favour partnerships with suppliers; universities are called for providing advanced technologies; high level of technological and demand changes should led towards cooperation. The poorness of empirical evidence is even truer for SME firms, for which the interest in the topic of open innovation and networks is also growing (Van de Vrande et al., 2009). As a matter of fact, while it is recognized the importance of collaborative relationships in innovation for SMEs due to their limited internal knowledge and resources, the investigation on the antecedents of these collaborations is only anecdotal (Classen et al., 2012). Although, it is proved the great importance of family firms within SMEs, it is surprising that their innovation activities have not received greater attention (Davis and Harveston, 2000). Moreover, several studies reveal that family firms are different from non-family firms as concerns several business processes, i.e. financing, corporate governance, internationalization, entrepreneurship and innovation (Cassia et al., 2011). Specific goals, values, attitudes and resources seem to underpin this difference. However, also family firms are not all alike (Classen et al., 2012) and their heterogeneity (in particular, in terms of different involvement degrees of family members in the firm management) makes the study about their behaviour even more interesting. Paucity of study about family firms and their heterogeneity justify the tentative contribution of our study. In particular, we claim that particular categories of family SMEs (i.e. family firms stricto sensu versus managerial family firms) show specific behaviours also concerning cooperative relationships, in terms of collaboration breadth and depth and their determinants (in similar vein to Classen et al., 2012). Among the several definitions of family firms, we follow here a synthesis in terms of family ownership (Donckels and Frohlich, 1991) and family management (Daily and Dollinger, 1993). Thus, a family firm is defined first as “a business in which the majority of shares are owned by a single or more families”. In addition, two categories of family firms (i.e. stricto sensu and managerial) are distinguished on the basis of the “actual involvement of family members in the management of the business”. The paper proceeds as follow: section 2 provides the literature review which in turn gives the theoretical foundations to section 3 – our investigation framework and research questions; section 4 describes the methodology and defines the used variables; section 5 reports and discusses the results; lastly, section 6 concludes.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE CONCEPTS USED IN THE STUDY

2.1. OPENNESS AND DETERMINANTS OF OPENNESS IN INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT LITERATURE

Since Chesbrough published his book in 2003, the concept of OI has received a considerable amount of attention from practitioners and researchers. The concept of OI is criticized in the widespread view that highlights an artificial dichotomy between closed and open approaches (Dahlander and Gann, 2010), whilst the idea of exploring different degrees and types of openness in a sort of continuum seems to provide a more interesting way to investigate (Chesbrough, 2003). For example, Lichtenthaler (2008)

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defines the degree of openness by crossing the critical processes that characterize Open Innovation (i.e., on the one side exploration/acquisition, or outside-in or inbound, and, on the other, exploitation/commercialization or inside-out or outbound) and thus defines the extent of external technology acquisition and the extent of external technology exploitation. The concept of openness degree has also been explored by Laursen and Salter (2006) through breadth (number of sources used for OI) and depth (intensity of collaboration with each source) of external sources. Based on the concept of openness degree, previous research in Innovation & Technology Management literature studied the relationships among different OI degrees and several contextual factors, driven by the idea that these factors could be the determinants of OI company choices. Context factors can be both variables representing the external environment (e.g. industry’s R&D intensity; technological turbulence; globalization trend) and the internal context, in the sense that they represent firm-specific situations, (e.g. firm’s innovation strategy and goals/drivers for collaboration). As concerns internal context, open innovation literature suggests that companies cooperate in innovation activities both to reduce costs and business risks and to extend skills, competences and creativity (Huang et al., 2009). Firms also engage in collaboration to access specialized skills and better utilize internal creativity by exposing internal development staff to new knowledge, technology and organizational development processes (Calantone and Stanko, 2007, Chesbrough and Teece, 1996). The degree of openness also seems to increase when there is an emphasis on radical innovation, concerning both the degree of external technology commercialization and external acquisition. This is true, on one hand, due to the possibility to facilitate acceptance on the market and to create a standard; on the other, because firms which emphasize radical innovation are not able to develop all knowledge internally, but must rely strongly on complementary external sources. Emphasis on radical innovation is studied by Lichtenthaler, 2008; Lichtenthaler and Ernst, 2009; Lazzarotti et al., 2011 as an element of a more extended construct, i.e. technology aggressiveness. Although controversial, it seems that technology aggressiveness fosters company propensity to search collaboration routes with external sources of knowledge, with the specific purposes (drivers of collaboration) of expanding the company’s competence base and accessing to advanced technologies.

2.2.PREVIOUS STUDIES ABOUT FAMILY FIRMS AND COLLABORATIONS IN INNOVATION There is a vast body of literature that outlines the distinctive nature of family firms regarding different business processes, for instance financing, corporate governance, internationalization, entrepreneurship and, more recently, technological innovation-development process in the two typical types usually distinguished, i.e. product and process innovations (De Massis et al., 2012). This suggests that there might be relevant peculiarities in family firms also as concerns the determinants of the propensity to collaborate (i.e. the determinants of openness) in innovation processes. Literature usually studies family firms as particular enterprises within the SMEs, for which it is largely accepted that limitation in knowledge and other resources leads to open innovation routes (Van de Vrande et al., 2009). Therefore, literature supposes that also family firms could foster their innovativeness by engaging on collaborations with a wide range of partners to access external resources (Zahra, 2012; Classen et al., 2012). However, peculiarities of family firms are not forgotten (Chrisman et al., 2005; Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007; Olson et al. 2007), and, rather, are supposed to drive specific approaches towards openness.

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Risk aversion seems to explain a higher conservativeness and stability of the strategic behaviour (Dunn, 1996). In particular, risk aversion seems to exert a negative impact on some determinants of openness as radical innovation propensity, creativity search and change attitudes (Dyer, 2003; Dunn, 1996), nevertheless some studies show opposite evidence (Craig and Dibrell, 2006). Family identity and focus on socio-emotional wealth (SEW) preservation (Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007; Gómez-Mejía et al., 2010) make family firms more hesitant to join collaborations with a diversified set of partnerships because of “loss control” fear. Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007 found that the preservation of family values is pursued even giving up the economic benefits achievable through cooperation. Social capital (“resources embedded in the relationships among people”, Hoffman et al., 2006) is such that family members, highly cohesive, may rely on other members as concerns the management of the company: in micro business even on only one member, who becomes the key business manager. Although family manager could be highly professional, in the absence of other managerial profiles, (s)he can encounter “bottlenecks” decision, due to time-constraints or some competence shortcomings (Covin, 1994; Siron and Hitt, 2003; Lazzarotti, forthcoming). This situation can be aggravated by a workforce that, although cohesive, may have skill lacks (Freel, 2000). To the worst extreme, altruism, family trust and cohesiveness may culminate in nepotism, thus keeping the management assigned to incompetent family members (Gómez-Mejía et al., 2001). Qualified managers may avoid family firms because of the exclusive succession, limited potential for professional growth, lack of perceived professionalism (Horton, 1986). Consequently, family firms can have limited cognitive resources and absorptive capacity, which lower their receptiveness to a broad search process for external sources (Classen et al., 2012; Zahra, 2012). Social capital assumes specific features for family firms also with respect to the external stakeholders or community more in general: the peculiar social capital can result in good relationships with some particular types of stakeholders (e.g. suppliers and customers). Such relationships are built across generations and are characterized even by personal attachments (Carney, 2005). In any case, literature also recognizes that family business are not all alike: their heterogeneity is manifested as different cognitive backgrounds and values (Westhead and Howorth, 2007), in turn explained by several factors that deal with the educational background of decision-maker family members (Distelberg and Sorenson, 2009) and their educational background diversity (Knight et al., 1999; Dahlin et al., 2005). Classen et al. (2012) investigate the influence of such factors on family firms’ propensity to openness. The underlying rationale of their investigation is that the mentioned factors are capable of mitigating some family values, attitudes and cognitive limitations, thus encouraging external resource acquisition in innovation process. For example, well-educated family CEOs might mitigate emphasis on SEW preservation and instead pursue financial objectives, fostered through cooperation. Moreover, well-educated family CEOs can overcome limitations in cognitive resources which disable absorptive capacity and external resource acquisition. Similarly, educational background diversity of family top managers can enhance their cognitive capabilities and the absorptive capacity (Van Den Bosch et al. 2003), thus broadening collaboration breadth. Another factor, which is capable to modify typical family firms’ values and resources, deals with the involvement of non-family managers in strategic decision-making (Kellermanns et al., 2012; Oswald et al., 2009). Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007 find that the presence of non-family managers shifts firm’s orientation to financial goals, limits family discretion and thus enhances the set of collaboration partners. In addition, non-

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family managers may extend the cognitive diversity of a family firm and thus strengthen its absorptive capacity (Zahra, 2012) with the final result of improving collaboration breadth (Classen et al., 2012). Literature finds also that external managers enforce family firm’s entrepreneurial orientation and its innovativeness (Cruz and Nordqvist, 2012). Hence, although literature does not question that family firms are owned by one or more families, it instead debates on factors capable to shape different types of family firms. Among such factors, the separation of management from ownership, through the involvement of non-family managers, seems crucial also to explain firms’ propensity to openness.

3. INVESTIGATION FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In this paper, with the purpose of enriching the empirical evidence still anecdotal, we aim to focus on different types of family firms: family firms stricto sensu for which ownership and management overlap (both hold by family members) and managerial family firms for which ownership and management are disjointed in some manner and non-family managers are involved in strategic decision-making (see methodology section for further detail). Following Classen et al. (2012), we are expecting that family stricto sensu and managerial firms are different with respect to the main firm-specific determinants of collaboration, because of a different connotation in terms of family values and resources. We focus on internal context in terms of innovation strategy approach and the consequent goals pursued in collaborations (drivers of collaboration) as determinants of openness and then we explore differences in collaboration breadth and depth. In any case, supposing that all the investigated companies (i.e. SMEs) are characterized by resource limitations, we focus on inbound open innovation as a practice which fosters firm innovativeness thanks to the access to external resources.

3.1.FAMILY FIRMS STRICTO SENSU VERSUS MANAGERIAL FAMILY FIRMS Following the literature suggestions mentioned above, we suppose that the risk aversion and conservativeness of the strategic behavior, usually attributed to family firms, could lead to a lower radical innovation propensity and thus to a lower attention to the goal of accessing to advanced technologies. As final result, because of the positive relationship found by literature between emphasis on radical innovation and degree of openness (Lichtenthaler, 2008), a lower level of collaboration breadth and depth could be achieved by family firms. However, taking into account that non-family managers’ involvement can enhance firm entrepreneurial orientation and innovativeness (Cruz and Nordqvist, 2012; Carney, 2005), we suppose that managerial family firms are less affected by risk aversion and conservativeness and thus their propensity to radical innovation and openness is higher than that of family firms stricto sensu. Following Gómez-Mejía et al. (2007), Gómez-Mejía et al. (2010) and Classen et al. (2012), we suppose also that family identity and focus on socio-emotional wealth (SEW) preservation could limit the family firms’ receptiveness to a broad search process of external partners, because of a perceived loss of freedom in family business control. However, bearing in mind that the presence of non-family managers within a family firm’s management team mitigates family identity and SEW preservation and shifts company’s orientation towards financial goals (Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007), we suppose that managerial family firms are less frightened by the loss of control. Thus, not so constrained to protect SEW, they should not limit the opportunities of collaboration.

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Family manager could be highly professional, but in the absence of other managerial profiles, (s)he can encounter “bottlenecks” decision, due to time-constraints or some competence shortcomings, synthetically defined as cognitive limitation (Covin, 1994; Siron and Hitt, 2003). Conversely, non-family managers, maybe with different educational backgrounds and working as a team and for instance as members of a Board of Directors, should be able to enrich firm’s cognitive capabilities (Milliken and Martins, 1996; Simons et al., 1999), thus enforcing absorptive capacity and openness propensity. Social capital assumes specific features for family firms with respect to the external stakeholders (e.g. suppliers and customers). For example, the peculiar social capital can result in particularly good relationships, characterized by even “personal attachment”, with some types of stakeholders (Carney, 2005). This could lead to choose a less diversified set of external partnerships, by focusing mainly on the trusted partners. Again, this condition should be less exacerbated in managerial family firms, more so if non-family managers joined the working group more recently, maybe as a result of generational transitions, and therefore are less affected by family socio-emotional pressures. As further clarification, it is worth noting that focusing on the “managerial factor” which differentiates family firms and assigning to it a role in explaining different openness behaviors, means also to suppose that the ownership type is not relevant to the same goal. To search support for this hypothesis, we also compare all the family firms (stricto sensu plus managerial ones) with respect to non-family firms, i.e. those for which ownership is not hold by one or more families (see methodology section for further details). Our hypothesis will find support if no differences (in terms of openness determinant and breadth and depth) are emerging between family and non-family firms. Indeed these two groups differ in an explicit way only as concerns ownership, which we suppose irrelevant per se, while the “managerial factor” is present in both groups. In other words, we consider managerial family firms more similar to non-family firms than to family firms stricto sensu. Since our aim is to search for a possible role of the managerial factor, the first comparison mentioned above (between family firms stricto sensu and managerial ones; ceteris paribus as concerns ownership) seems to be the more relevant for the purpose of the paper. Lastly, some external context variables (technological and market dynamics) are also explored. However, due to the fact that all the investigated companies belong, for our selection choice, to high and medium-high technology intensity sectors, technological and market dynamics should not be different for the two types of family firms. Figure 1 illustrates the main studied relationships. In sum, we compare family firms stricto sensu and managerial family firms, expecting that the latter show high level of collaboration propensity (i.e. collaboration breadth and depth), motivated by a more aggressive innovation strategy (e.g. with emphasis on radical innovation and with the main goal of accessing to advanced technologies).

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inn

BREADTH DEPTH

Determinants  of  collaboration

Innovation  strategy

Drivers  of  collaboration

Collaboration  choices:

Family  firms  stricto sensu

Managerial  Family  firmsOwnership

Figure 1: the investigation framework

4. METHODOLOGY AND VARIABLES

A randomly selected sample of 3912 manufacturing SMEs (number of employees: min=10, max=249), located in Italy, was extracted from a database of comparable financial information for public and private companies across Europe – Amadeus, Bureau van Dijk. Selected legal forms were those of Joint stock company, Limited liability company and Limited partnership by shares. As industry, we focused on high and medium-high technology, following the Eurostat aggregation of the manufacturing industries (see Appendix 1 for further details on industries). In total, 213 questionnaires were returned (response rate of about 5%). Variables were defined and measured through an online questionnaire:

• Family firms were identified according to two criteria. The first is more general and through a dichotomous variable splits the sample in two parts: company ownership belongs/does not belong to one or more families. The second is more specific and aims to further specify the sample by identifying more precisely the family firms according to the portion of shares owned by a single or more families. In particular, we suppose that family firms are those for which this percentage is higher than 50%. Therefore, in this study, non-family firms are considered those for which ownership does not belong to one or more families, plus those for which portion of shares owned by a single or more families is lower (or equal to) than 50%. The application of these rules allows to identify only 31 non-family firms with respect to 182 family firms;

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• Characterization within the (182) family-owned firms was grasped by some questions that investigated the “managerial factor” operating within them and separated by ownership in some manner. To this purpose, we asked 3 questions aiming to identify the involvement of professional actors extraneous to the family owners in the company top management: the first regarding the percentage of involvement without any reference to formal organizational bodies; the second and the third respectively about the explicit existence of a formal Board of Directors and the percentage of non-family managers it involves. Hence, family firms were divided into two groups on the basis of such separation between ownership and management. Operationally, family business stricto sensu are those for which the involvement of family-owner members in the management of company is higher than 50% (ownership and management overlap); managerial family businesses are those for which the involvement of family owners in the management of company is lower than 50% (thus the involvement of professional actors is higher than 50%) and have a formal Board of Directors, composed of a percentage of non-family members higher than 50%. In sum, these two groups of family firms are not different in terms of ownership, but in managerial terms. The application of these rules allows to identify 157 family firms stricto sensu and 25 managerial family firms;

• Determinants of openness (i.e. innovation strategy and drivers of collaboration) are 7-point Likert scale variables, taken by literature (Miles and Snow, 1978; Hagedoorn, 1993; Lichtenthaler and Ernst, 2009; Lazzarotti et al., 2011), but tested again according to the usual EFA techniques. Items of innovation strategy aim to identify the construct “technology aggressiveness”, where emphasis of innovation strategy is placed on technology excellence to which in turn emphasis on radical innovation is supposed to be related. Goals or drivers of collaboration are a set of purposes identified by literature as motivations for openness towards external actors and knowledge sources;

• Similarly to Laursen and Salter (2006), collaboration breadth is constructed as the combination of 7 external sources of knowledge and technology for innovation (universities and research centres, innovation intermediaries, government agencies, customers, suppliers, competitors, companies operating in other industries). Collaboration breadth ranges from 0 when a firm does not use any external search channel to 7 when a firm collaborates with all the channels listed in the survey. To compute collaboration depth, firms were instead asked to indicate in a 7-point Likert scale the intensity of collaboration with each external source;

• Technological and market dynamics were measured according to 7-point scales by taking literature suggestion (Drechsler and Natter, 2012);

• ROI (return on investment) and ROS (return on sales) as measures of performance by asking to respondents whether their performance is higher than industry mean. Respondent perception is still measured through 7-point Likert scales.

We will use ANOVA tests to evaluate differences between family firms stricto sensu and managerial family firms as well as between family and non-family firms.

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1, 2 and 3 report the results on the test of our hypotheses.

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First of all, Table 1 compares the two types of family firms in terms of the internal determinant of openness that is “Innovation strategy” factor. This factor is further explored in detail as concerns one of its components, which more precisely grasps the emphasis on radical innovation (see Table 2). Mean comparisons seem to confirm that managerial family firms are characterized by a stronger entrepreneurial orientation and innovativeness propensity (Cruz and Nordqvist, 2012). The emphasis on technology excellence is suggested also by the significantly higher mean found in the specific driver of collaboration reported in Table 2, which aims to access to advanced technologies. The means of goal of expanding the company’s competence base as well as that of stimulating creativity are instead quite similar into the groups: all the family firms, as SMEs, likely attempt to overcome limitation in knowledge and other resources through open innovation routes (van de Vrande et al., 2009).

Type of family firms

Family firms stricto sensu

(n=157)

Managerial family firms

(n=25)

Overall

(n=182)

Internal context factors - Innovation strategy

- Driver of Collaboration

4.16

4.76

4.61*

4.96*

4.22

4.79

External context factors

- Technological and market dynamics

4.72

4.81

4.73

Performance ROI

ROS

4.19

4.26

4.40

4.44

4.22

4.28 Table 1 – Determinants of Openness and performance in family stricto sensu and managerial family firms (ANOVA test) * Means of managerial family firms are significantly different from those of family firms stricto sensu

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Type of family firms Family firms stricto

sensu (n=157)

Managerial family firms

(n=25)

Overall (n=182)

We focus on radical rather than incremental innovation

3.63 4.36* 3.73

Expand the company's competence base

5.06 5.60 5.53

Access to advanced technologies

3.82 4.67* 3.93

Stimulate creativity and idea generation capacity

5.11 5.37 5.34

Table 2 – Exploration on radical innovation item and specific drivers of collaboration in family stricto sensu and managerial family firms * Means of managerial family firms are significantly different from those of family firms stricto sensu More in general, the factor “Driver of collaboration” shows higher mean values for managerial family firms, suggesting that for such companies pressure to collaborate is in turn higher and motivated by several reasons. In supporting this interpretative line, there is also the evidence about collaboration breadth variable (see Table 3), whose mean is significantly higher for managerial family firms: these companies activate a broad set of partners, each of which maybe involved for specific purposes. Evidence confirms correlations between type of partner (i.e. intensity of collaboration with the partner) and collaboration goals, already found by previous literature: intensity of collaboration with universities and research is positively related with the goals of expanding the company’s competence base and of accessing to advanced technology; customers are associable to the driver of stimulating creativity while suppliers are involved with the main shared goal of reducing costs. Although customers and suppliers are the types of partners unquestionably involved more deeply by all the family firms (see Table 3), it stands out the higher intensity of collaboration with universities and research centres by managerial family firms.

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Openness Dimensions (means) Family firms stricto

sensu (n=157)

Managerial family firms

(n=25)

Overall (n=182)

Single Partner depth 1. Universities and research centres 2,60 3.94* 2.77 2. Innovation intermediaries 2.85 3.28 2.91 3. Government agencies 1.75 2.06 2.91 4. Customers 3.97 3.89 3.96 5. Suppliers 3.93 4.56 4.01 6. Competitors 1.47 1.56 1.48 7. Companies operating in other

industries 2.57 2.33 2.54

Collaboration breadth 4.78 5.40* 4.87 Table 3 – Openness in family stricto sensu and managerial family firms * Means of managerial family firms are significantly different from those of family firms stricto sensu These evidences seem consistent in outlining the profile of the managerial family firms with respect to the family firms stricto sensu: they seem to show an innovation strategy more aggressive, more oriented to technology excellence and to radical innovation. Moved by this strategic aim, they search for a broad set of external sources (even non-traditional partners, as universities), motivated mainly by goals of competence (in particular technological competences) enlargement. It does not mean neglecting the costs and not paying attention to customer needs. It is important to note that family firms stricto sensu and managerial ones operate in the same competitive and technological environment (there are not significant mean differences in Table 3 as concerns the perceived technological and market dynamics of their industries). This suggests that openness behaviour is determined by the strategic intent of the non-family managers, whose presence discriminates the two types of family firms (ceteris paribus in terms of ownership structure). For them, the mitigation of the family values and lower cognitive resource constraints seem capable of affecting strategic behaviour in the direction suggested by our hypotheses as stated in section 3. In managerial family firms, the factors in favour of openness (both in breadth and depth conception) are likely operating: a reduction of risk aversion and conservativeness (Cruz and Nordqvist, 2012), a strong orientation towards financial goals and lower fear of control loss (Gómez-Mejía et al., 2007), an enrichment of firm’s cognitive capabilities (Simons et al., 1999), a lower socio-emotional pressure. Further support to our hypothesis that managerial family firms form a special group within the family firms stems from two other types of data analysis. First of all, an exploration of their ROI and ROS mean values suggests that such firms have good results with respect to their industry average, although we did not find significant differences with respect to family firms stricto sensu. Moreover, no significant differences (in terms of all the variables analysed above) emerged between the entire group of family firms (stricto sensu plus managerial) and non-family firms. Bearing in mind that these two groups explicitly differ only in terms of ownership, while the “managerial factor” cannot be isolated, we further suspect that just the managerial factor plays a role in explaining the different strategic partnering behaviour adopted by managerial family firms.

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6. LIMITATIONS AND CONCLUSION

The main limitation of the paper lies in the limited number of companies identified as belonging to the group of managerial family firms. Similarly, also the number of the companies recognized as non-family firms is very small, although this poorness is less serious due to purposes of the paper, faced more than anything else to characterize different profiles of family firms. Thus, the results of the paper must be considered as early explorative insights useful to encourage further studies on the topic of openness propensity by family firms (and the connected “so what” in terms of innovative and economic performance). In the managerial family firms we found that the level of some openness determinants and related goals (both these entities defined according to suggestion by Innovation & Technology management literature) is higher than in family stricto sensu counterparts. This seems to make sense in terms of performance, although only as a clue. However, most important seems the evidence that the ownership of the firm is not so relevant even for the family SMEs, while the managerial component definitely deserves more attention. The managerial factor seems indeed capable to shape in a peculiar way the already peculiar values and resources of a family firm. Although the relevance of management with respect to ownership in defining the strategic behaviour of a company is obvious and exceedingly studied for big companies, it is not so deeply analysed for SMEs and, more in particular, for family SMEs. Certainly, most of the works mentioned in section 2 contribute to understand the role of the managerial factor and its features (e.g. educational background) on family firm’s strategic decision-making, but, according to our best knowledge, very few are focus on collaboration propensity in innovation process. In line with these last contributions, our paper enriches the empirical evidence on the topic in a country, i.e. Italy, where SMEs and family SMEs make up the majority of the businesses. Just the sample limitations, mentioned above, show how likely the managerial factor is still not common within the Italian family firms. This paper identifies an option for these firms that, through the involvement of non-family managers, could also broad their external search horizon.

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